by Greg Mayer

George Beccaloni, fellow Wallaceophile, has sent word that a monument to Alfred Russel Wallace has been erected on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

As described at the Alfred Russel Wallace Website of the Wallace Memorial Fund by George and Simon Purser, the monument is a full bust, greater than life size (about 5-6 feet tall), on a nearly 9 foot tall plinth. It’s in the Tangkoko Nature Reserve, near Batu Putih, in the northeastern part of Sulawesi, an area Wallace visited during his travels in the East Indies. Wallace described the area in The Malay Archipelago as a particularly wild spot, with anoa (dwarf buffalo) and babirusa (an endemic pig) common. Those ungulates are gone from the area today, but it remains a popular spot for birding and seeing the Celebes black “ape” (actually a monkey; “Celebes” is an earlier, Portuguese, spelling of the Indonesian name of the island).

Bill Wallace, Alfred’s great grandson, prepared a video greeting shown to the assembled dignitaries at the monument’s inauguration.

Here at WEIT we’ve often commented on the great British naturalist, and readers will recall our several Wallace Year (2013) commemorations.